The reason that point is important is because regardless of the value derived by the end user, it is the ability to extract value that counts for the producer. And when smell cannot be rationed, or music supply cannot be controlled, you change your model.
The author's point on this is that there's already a paying customer who covers the cost of producing the smell (by buying the meal).
Which just goes to show you can't push a metaphor too far. I still agree more with PG's conclusion. It really is a strawman to claim that copyright is the only way to pay creators.
There's already a paying customer who receives meal: local distributors who the content is licensed to. They get exclusive rights to the content (meal).
Now, internet services receive smells: non-exclusive rights which are valid in some countries and not others, like cheese with holes.
Now there's this huge problem where I can't go to 99% of internet services and pay for music because they don't want my money because I live in a wrong country. This is what we'd call "smell", and while I would pay for "meal" (ability to use any music service in the world according to its pricing and model), I'm only offered "smell" (the suggestion to go elsewhere and figure a way to actually pay for stuff).
And this smell, I won't buy.